So why are young people (who don't vote) for Bernie while older voters are not for Bernie?

[Jersey Devil]

You think it might have something to do with younger people not having been exposed to anti-socialist propaganda while older voters have been there, seen that? That's what I think. I am an older voter and don't think democratic socialism is a bad thing, but I also have seen what people can do to demonize it and make it sound evil. Older folks know that and how easy it would be for Trump to hang that collar on Bernie, so that's why they won't vote for him.

Bernie, in his speech today, sounded like he was mystified about how people like his message but won't vote for him as the messenger. Well, that's it.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. He is a horrible messenger for one thing.

[George II]

2. Older voters have already worked hard and earned their stuff, younger voters haven't.

[Mariana]

10. Is that why the majority of older voters voted for Trump in 2016? nt.

[beachbumbob]

3. I am an older democrat and its definite wisdom to sort out bullshit when you hear it

we all love puppies and I know we can;t give a free puppy to every family. We all love ice cream, would be great all ice cream was free.

The fact is there is idealism and there is reality

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Young people don't vote because they don't vote.

That has been the documented pattern for decades; it's nothing new and has nothing to do with exposure to anti-socialist propaganda.

The fact that few young people vote is nothing new. Historically, about 55% of Americans have voted in presidential elections. Youth voting levels have been much lower than that for decades. In U.S. presidential elections, about 70% of voters 60 and up have turned out – which is nearly three times the rate of Americans between 18 and 29. https://theconversation.com/why-so-few-young-americans-vote-132649

[unitedwethrive]

5. While people may not mind his message, it is more than just a strong-armed messenger

that turns people off. Many older Americans realize that such profound change will not happen in our current climate of partisanship. Even in the best scenario, with us winning both the House and Senate, the disinformation campaign from the repubs will be enough to derail the massive spending that is required to even begin to implement the Sander's social programs.

Look what happened with the ACA. We ended up with a very watered down version of what we started with, and that is when we had control of the house.

We want a realistic leader, not one that will go in and spin their wheels madly, while nothing of significance gets accomplished.

[stopbush]

6. I'm 65. I never trusted Rs when they weren't honest about how they would pay

for their tax cuts etc, and I don’t trust Sanders who has had six years to provide real numbers showing how he will pay for his proposals but to date has yet to provide such numbers.

He hasn’t earned my trust.

[frazzled]

7. Nah, it's because we know this guy

We were the young people who went to SDS meetings back in the late 60s, and Bernie was one of those guys, 5 or 6 or 8 or 9 years older than us, who were running them. And they were stuck on their Marxist rhetoric to a fault, lecturing to us mere unwashed mortals, and were definitely what we used to call "sexist pigs." And we eventually left, because they were immune to hearing any other voices, or the least drop of dissension. They were mini-autocrats, and big egotists. We were against the war, they were against everything.

I remember once, a friend of mine, a math major, convinced me to go with him to occupy the building that then housed the Courant Institute of Mathematics (this was NYU in 1970). As I understood it, the large computer there was being contracted to conduct research for the military-industrial complex and thus aiding the war. Seemed reasonable to object. We joined the sit-in in the hallways downstairs for several hours while, more or less unknown to us, a group of more radical individuals had apparently broken into the computer room and were holding the computer for ransom (ostensibly to pay bail for an unidentified Black Panther member). Word got around from a trusted professor of my friend's, that indeed, no such research was being done with that computer. So we asked ourselves, what are we doing here? And left. And good that we did: a small bomb had been planted in the computer room. You can read about that episode here, if interested: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/nyregion/the-mathematicians-who-ended-the-kidnapping-of-an-nyu-computer.html

I too held socialist ideas for quite a few years. But in the course of my life, and in the course of growing up, as I heard stories from friends and acquaintances about their experiences in Marxist-socialist states they had fled, I became ashamed of my naive support for repressive regimes. These stories were not from conservative people: they were from a pioneering Czech video artist and digital inventor, a renowned Chinese filmmaker, a Cuban government archivist who defected, etc.

We disdain Bernie because we know him: we know his rigidity, his self-importance, his failure to reasonably modify, his entrenchment in certain ideas of the past, and his narrow focus on economically based theory to the exclusion of all else. We were there.

[Jersey Devil]

9. Nice post, and I remember those times as well

I was a student at New York Law School in 1970, which was also the year of Kent State and Mark Rudd. Funny, my memory is of a computer being held hostage at Columbia. I remember marching in Foley Square and all the government types taking everyone pictures.

I also remember the inflexible types you mention and how closed minded a lot of them were except to their own ideas. I especially remember one guy who thought it was a great idea to hold the Dean's office hostage because we didn't have any native American students and getting totally pissed off when no one would join him in his crusade. Eventually the cops dragged him out of the Dean's doorway and he quit school (or was tossed out).

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall to hear the stuff that Bernie must have been saying back in those days.

[GemDigger]

8. Well...

I have a relative who thinks because we have a millionaire in our family tree (several branches away) that they should give him money.

His motto is "I want it all, I want it now, I want it free. I am owed."

[aikoaiko]

11. Older voters already have Medicare.

[NurseJackie]

12. It's the Youth Soccer philosophy. Nobody keeps score because you're a winner just for showing up.

Everyone is entitled to a trophy even if you did nothing to deserve one.